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Absolutely Revolting

April 1984, no. 59

Welcome to the April 1984 issue of Australian Book Review!

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Dennis Pryor reviews ‘The Rapes of Lucretia’ by Ian Donaldson
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Contents Category: Literary Studies
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Article Title: A regenerator of myth
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Ian Donaldson’s The Rapes of Lucretia is a book so rich in ideas that a review can only be unfairly perfunctory. It starts from ancient accounts of the rape of Lucretia and tracks the transformations of the myth through two millennia. This is no wearisome catalogue, no tedious grinding of PhD mills. Donaldson is, as he puts it, “especially interested in the close relationship that may exist between the creative and the philosophical processes of mind; between art and argument”. What emerges is a sturdy contribution to the history of ideas, a book showing how a myth which sustained Roman ideas of heroism and political liberty was used at different periods of history to reflect and embody changing political and sexual ideas.
Book 1 Title: The Rapes of Lucretia
Book Author: Ian Donaldson
Book 1 Biblio: OUP, 203 pp., index, $37.50 0 19 812638 7
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Ian Donaldson’s The Rapes of Lucretia is a book so rich in ideas that a review can only be unfairly perfunctory. It starts from ancient accounts of the rape of Lucretia and tracks the transformations of the myth through two millennia. This is no wearisome catalogue, no tedious grinding of PhD mills. Donaldson is, as he puts it, “especially interested in the close relationship that may exist between the creative and the philosophical processes of mind; between art and argument”. What emerges is a sturdy contribution to the history of ideas, a book showing how a myth which sustained Roman ideas of heroism and political liberty was used at different periods of history to reflect and embody changing political and sexual ideas.

Read more: Dennis Pryor reviews ‘The Rapes of Lucretia’ by Ian Donaldson

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Carmel Oakley reviews ‘The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale’ by Lou Klepac
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Contents Category: Art
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Article Title: Painter of the outback
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It is an irony that one of the most European of our painters is regarded, in the popular mind, as being the most characteristically Australian. Drysdale, perhaps more so than any other modern Australian painter, depended on European models: his paintings locate themselves not in the outback but in the European modern tradition – beginning with Cézanne and extending through Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, de Chirico and Tanguy to Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland.
Book 1 Title: The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale
Book Author: Lou Klepac
Book 1 Biblio: Bay Books, 383 pp., $69.95 0 85835 685 6
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It is an irony that one of the most European of our painters is regarded, in the popular mind, as being the most characteristically Australian. Drysdale, perhaps more so than any other modern Australian painter, depended on European models: his paintings locate themselves not in the outback but in the European modern tradition – beginning with Cézanne and extending through Picasso, Braque, Modigliani, de Chirico and Tanguy to Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland.

Read more: Carmel Oakley reviews ‘The Life and Work of Russell Drysdale’ by Lou Klepac

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Contents Category: Law
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Article Title: Making criminals
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It is a common occurrence for teachers of criminal law in Australia to have their students ask: “I have found lots of materials on the situation in England and in America. Isn’t there anything useful written about Australia?” Sadly, the answer is all too frequently “no”, if the student is looking for material outside of bland appellate case analysis or correctional criminology.

Despite frequently being at the centre of political controversy and public attention, debate on the nature and direction of the Australian criminal justice system is still largely carried out at the low level of anecdote, impression and pre-existing prejudice.

Issues in Criminal Justice Administration is one of a few books published in the past several years which offer some hope for the development of a body of literature on the criminal justice system in Australia providing both theoretical discourse and empirical study and analysis.
Book 1 Title: Issues in Criminal Justice Administration
Book Author: Mark Findlay, Sandra J. Egger, Jeff Sutton
Book 1 Biblio: George Allen & Unwin, 233 pp., biblio., $22.50, $12.95 pb
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It is a common occurrence for teachers of criminal law in Australia to have their students ask: “I have found lots of materials on the situation in England and in America. Isn’t there anything useful written about Australia?” Sadly, the answer is all too frequently “no”, if the student is looking for material outside of bland appellate case analysis or correctional criminology.

Despite frequently being at the centre of political controversy and public attention, debate on the nature and direction of the Australian criminal justice system is still largely carried out at the low level of anecdote, impression and pre-existing prejudice.

Issues in Criminal Justice Administration is one of a few books published in the past several years which offer some hope for the development of a body of literature on the criminal justice system in Australia providing both theoretical discourse and empirical study and analysis.

Read more: David Wesbrot reviews ‘Issues in Criminal Justice Administration’ by Mark Findlay, Sandra J. Egger...

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Kate Ahearne reviews ‘The Strength of Tradition’ by R. F. Holt (ed.), ‘Shalom’ by Nancy Keesing (ed.) and ‘Births, Deaths and Marriages’ by Carmel Bird
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Contents Category: Australian Fiction
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Article Title: Newcomers
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The short story has always enjoyed a special place in Australian literature, and many of our finest writers have excelled in the form. Strangely enough for such a young culture, and one heavily dependant on immigration, the theme of the immigrant experience has been largely overshadowed by the bush ethos that dominated the stories of the 1890s, and the resurgence of interest in the bush and bush values in the stories of the late thirties and early forties. Our writers have been more interested in what it means to be Australian than in what it’s like to be new-Australian. More recently writers have tended to concern themselves with experimentation in language and form, and with themes that they considered to be of international rather than merely national importance.
Book 1 Title: The Strength of Tradition
Book 1 Subtitle: Stories of the Immigrant Presence in Australia
Book Author: R. F. Holt
Book 1 Biblio: University of Queensland Press, 288pp., $14.95, $6.95 pb 0 7022 1691 7, 0 7022 1701 8 pb
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Book 2 Title: Shalom
Book 2 Subtitle: Australian Jewish Stories
Book 2 Author: Nancy Keesing
Book 2 Biblio: Penguin, 239pp., $6.95 0 14 006 665 9
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Book 3 Title: Births, Deaths and Marriages
Book 3 Author: Carmel Bird
Book 3 Biblio: Carmel Bird, 20 Lesney St., Richmond, Vic., 91pp.
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The short story has always enjoyed a special place in Australian literature, and many of our finest writers have excelled in the form. Strangely enough for such a young culture, and one heavily dependant on immigration, the theme of the immigrant experience has been largely overshadowed by the bush ethos that dominated the stories of the 1890s, and the resurgence of interest in the bush and bush values in the stories of the late thirties and early forties. Our writers have been more interested in what it means to be Australian than in what it’s like to be new-Australian. More recently writers have tended to concern themselves with experimentation in language and form, and with themes that they considered to be of international rather than merely national importance.

Read more: Kate Ahearne reviews ‘The Strength of Tradition’ by R. F. Holt (ed.), ‘Shalom’ by Nancy Keesing...

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Judy Smart reviews ‘The Diplomatic Battles of Billy Hughes’ by Peter Spartalis
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Contents Category: Politics
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Article Title: Hardline Billy
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Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923, had that same acerbic larrikin quality in his dealings with enemies at home and abroad that has become familiar to us in our current elected leader. Yet Hughes never forsook the heedless and stubborn directness that seems to have deserted Bob Hawke in recent and more sober times. Peter Spartalis’s book is about Hughes’s colourful and dynamic international role and achievements as Prime Minister and about the many protracted battles he fought in what he believed to be Australia’s diplomatic interests though there was nothing at all diplomatic about his style.
Book 1 Title: The Diplomatic Battles of Billy Hughes
Book Author: Peter Spartalis
Book 1 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, 309pp. biblio., index, $27.95, $14.95pb 0 86806 084 4, 0 86806 085 2 pb
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Billy Hughes, Prime Minister of Australia from 1915 to 1923, had that same acerbic larrikin quality in his dealings with enemies at home and abroad that has become familiar to us in our current elected leader. Yet Hughes never forsook the heedless and stubborn directness that seems to have deserted Bob Hawke in recent and more sober times. Peter Spartalis’s book is about Hughes’s colourful and dynamic international role and achievements as Prime Minister and about the many protracted battles he fought in what he believed to be Australia’s diplomatic interests though there was nothing at all diplomatic about his style.

Read more: Judy Smart reviews ‘The Diplomatic Battles of Billy Hughes’ by Peter Spartalis

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